← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
2/28/26: K&S React: TRUMP LAUNCHES REGIME CHANGE IRAN WAR
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Podcast Announcer
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- [00:02]
Bowen Yang
Guaranteed Human.
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Matt Rogers
This is Matt Rogers from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. Hey, so what if you could boost the WiFi to one of your devices when you need it most? Because Xfinity WI Fi can. And what if your wifi could fix itself before there's even really a problem? Xfinity is so reliable it does that too. What if your wifi had parental instincts? Xfinity WI Fi is part nanny, part ninja, protecting your kids while they're online. And finally, what if your W Wi fi was like the smartest wi fi? Yeah, it's WI fi that is so smart it makes everything work better together. Bottom line, Xfinity is smart and reliable. You deserve the peace of mind of having WI Fi that's got your back. Xfinity Imagine that support for the show
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- [02:19]
Matt Rogers
Hello everybody. Unfortunately we're having to join you this Saturday morning. Donald Trump has launched a major regime change war with Iran. This appears to be the full Monte. Crystal, we have the video that the President released at some 2:00am Eastern Time where he declared this war. Let's take a listen to some of the justifications.
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Donald Trump (quoted)
A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran. Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people. Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas and our allies throughout the world. For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted death to America and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder targeting the United States, our troops and the innocent people in many, many countries. Among the regime's very first acts was to back a violent takeover of the US embassy in Tehran, holding dozens of American hostages for 444 days. In 1983, Iran's proxies carried out the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut that killed 241American military personnel. In 2000. They knew and were probably involved with the attack on the USS Cole. Many died. Iranian forces killed and maimed hundreds of American service members. In Iraq, the regime's proxies have continued to launch countless attacks against American forces.
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Matt Rogers
Okay, I think we can come out of that, Crystal.
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Bowen Yang
Yeah, we're going way back with this one.
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Matt Rogers
I was going to say a little bit more.
- [04:18]
Bowen Yang
Using the embassy to. Yeah, to justify this. Insane.
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Matt Rogers
Right. So I think the most significant part of that statement was obviously, even though they're calling this a preemptive strike, it is a, you know, not actually a preemptive strike. They're using a long historical justification saying this is a 47 year war. This is a war explicitly now declared as regime change. But I think that the most significant part of the President's statement was the open acknowledgment that American lives are at risk and they may be lost as a result of this. I know that we have a clip. It's a little bit later on in that speech. It's a full eight minutes, so we're not going to play it all for you.
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Donald Trump (quoted)
Seeks to kill. The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties. That often happens in war. But we're doing this not for now, we're doing this for the future. And it is a noble mission. We pray for every service member as they selflessly risk their lives to ensure that Americans and our children will never be threatened by a nuclear armed Iran.
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Matt Rogers
Right. And so this is an open declaration of a regime change war. Crystal, do we have that statement from this morning around 4:00am a Washington Post reporter was able to reach President Trump by phone, where he didn't even make any pretense about the nuclear program, about the missile program, even about regional proxies. He said in a brief phone call his main concern is freedom for the Iranian people. And the US Is working with Iran to make a place that is safe. All I want is freedom for the people. This is 2005 George W. Bush inaugural. Obviously, you know, you and I are still absorbing the news, but it's catastrophic. Already we see massive retaliatory strikes across the entire region. It's a full blown regional war. And the war has only lasted for six hours now or so. And it's a catastrophe, I think, strategically for the United States, for the Iranian people and for the American people, for everybody really, who lives in the region.
- [06:24]
Bowen Yang
Yeah, and direct, you know, I mean, indirect contravention of Trump's positioning on the campaign as, oh, I'm going to be the peace candidate. And there was all kinds of don't vote for commerce, you'll send your sons to war. And now you literally have him out here basically saying, yeah, your sons and daughters may die for Israel because let's be real about who really wants this war, and it's Israel. And they've been pushing for decades at this point and found an easy mark here with Trump, in spite of the fact that his own top military advisors were saying this could go very poorly for the U.S. we think that this is a bad idea, that there is not some limited strike option here, that Iran, because they, you know, of course, obviously see this as existential. They're going to throw everything that they have to be able to preserve their own lives and their own government. So this is not a Venezuela, you know, quick in, quick out, grab a leader and, and done. Not that I think that that's really the end of the story with Venezuela, but that's how they perceive it at this point. This does not look like it's going to be another 12 day war where again, relatively limited in terms of, hey, we're going to take, count these specific nuclear sites and move on. No, this is a far reaching, already regional war where the justifications offered in that, you know, eight minute speech and then talking to reporters afterwards have ranged from everything to the nuclear program, the missiles, the revolution itself, the 1979, you know, embassy kidnapping of Americans in the embassy, the long litany of things that he listed out there to, hey, we just want human rights and freedom for the Iranian people and we have a new justification which is he's claiming that the Iranians interfered in the election. So we can throw, you know, a little bit of, like, pertextual election interference and use that. Be able to use that claim later on to mess with the 2026 elections here as well, which appears to be part of the PL is.
- [08:21]
Matt Rogers
So it's.
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Bowen Yang
Yeah, I mean, it's. There's so many layers of dystopia here that it's hard to wrap your head around. I do want to just set a little bit more of the context here for people who, you know, thinking about how we got to this place, because once again, you had Trump posturing like we're going through this diplomatic process. We had these meetings in Geneva this week. The Omanis came out and said the Iranians offered a deal that went far beyond the jcpoa. That was the Obama era nuclear deal. They offered, you know, these concessions that went way beyond what Obama was able to achieve, thinking that could potentially give Trump an out to say, you know what? I did so much better than Barack Obama could never look at me the art of the deal and give himself an out. But what we're hearing from Israeli officials is that once again, this diplomacy was just a ruse, that the. This was planned months ago, the date was set weeks ago, and in fact, all of this was just a dodge to wait until the time of their choosing. So a war of choice. Anyone you hear out there saying preemptive strike, blah, blah, blah, you should kindly disregard everything they have to say after this because this is an aggressive, illegal war of choice from this president and the Israelis. And there will be massive, like, repercussions that we cannot even imagine right now that play out for years and decades to come.
- [09:47]
Matt Rogers
Yes, the strikes are now planned for many, many days to continue, it appears initially. This morning we're hearing from the US Military. There will be some rolling types of strikes. One to two days of strikes, reassessment for battle damage, one to two days of strikes. Obviously, the enemy also gets a vote and they are having their vote right now. Do we want to go ahead and put the list of countries that Iran has bombed already after the initial strikes that happened on Tehran early 2am our time. So middle of the day for all of them. The list, I believe. Yep, here we have it. We have a number in Bahrain, we have a number in Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Jordan. Their videos coming out are unbelievable already to anybody who has visited or lived in the region. The most striking is exactly the one that you can see there on the screen. That was where The Fifth Fleet actually is crystal. Can we put the US Soldier reacting? I mean, you know, these are not scenes that you really ever would want to see. The next one that we're about to show you is an American, presumably an American service member or some American who is stationed in Bahrain. And you can actually hear him react live as a Iranian suicide shahed drone makes direct contact with a radar installation in Manama. Can we. Why don't we make that video for us? Yeah. And then we can see. Oh, oh, oh, oh,
- [11:20]
Donald Trump (quoted)
Oh, oh. Oh, my God. Oh, dude, me. A missile actually got through. Oh, there's more.
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Bowen Yang
I gotta get the out of here.
- [11:37]
Matt Rogers
So you could see that was for an Iranian suicide drone. He mistook that as a missile. There's other videos actually showing the direct impact. These are scenes that anybody familiar with the battlefield in Ukraine will see. So they have an asymmetric capability already. Many of their missiles have been intercepted in the Gulf. We don't have any confirmed American casualties right now. But to zoom out a little bit more, I can confirm the Iranians delivered a message on letter specifically to Jared Kushner and to Steve Wycoff saying that they will not pursue a nuclear weapon. The Omani foreign minister was actually on television yesterday confirming exactly what you said, that they offered to give up their entire enriched uranium stockpile, provide IAEA inspectors into the country, and basically to end this entire charade. But if you've been watching our program, I do think it's important that you all know the goalposts have all moved on behalf of the Israelis. Originally, it was supposed to about be about the nuclear weapon. I also, I finally have some more context for Trump saying that the Iranians won't say the magic words about how they won't pursue a nuclear weapon. He believes that any enrichment whatsoever, even for, like, medical isotopes, is itself a declaration of a nuclear weapon. So just so you all understand where that term came from, I also do think it's important now to see that diplomacy under this administration can never be trusted. I mean, we all knew that. It was kind of a joke. Of course, the Jared Kushner and Steve WWYCKOFF Negotiations, the JCPOA, came across the finish line after two and a half years of the most sophisticated experts in the US government on nuclear issues. It was just two real estate guys, one of whom is the son in law of the President. They didn't even really know what they were doing. Pretextual, right? Exactly. It was all pretextual for a planned operation that is now here. I also Think it's very important to underscore that what the administration has done by doing the full monty of regime change. There's no off ramp from here. The Iranians are fighting for their survival. There has been no offer, they are saying freedom overthrow. We have reports already this morning that Ayatollah Khamenei was actually targeted by the United States and Israel in a targeted assassination. We don't yet know what the result of that is, whether he is alive or dead. Many senior members of the irgc, the Iranian Defense Minister and others, Iranian state media saying that they have been killed. And you know, if you've been watching our coverage, they are prepared for this. They knew that some 90% of their command and control was going to get decimated. And they also clearly had pre approved strike packages across the entire region. The reason that they're doing that is they know that this is now a war of, this is an existential thing for the regime. You have to go all out, try to turn it into a regional war as much of a nightmare for the United States. I also think it's important, you know, to even take it back. As you said, you know, it's not exactly political times right now when so many lives are at stake. But this is the most profound betrayal I think of any president from the campaign to the actions in his administration and in particular the Vice President and many of the other people, the so called anti war movement. These are people who directly looked Americans in the face. Tulsi Gabbard, I think we should add to that list. Who said Stephen Miller, they said Kamala will send her sons to war. Donald Trump is a candidate of peace. That was always a little bit ridiculous because we knew that he was going to be pro Iran but, or sorry, pro Israel. But I don't think anybody, anybody thought a full blown war of choice on the Iranian, on the Iranian regime was ever in the cards. And you know, I, I, I, look we'll ruminate on that I think for many years to come and exactly how that happened and I guess now is not exactly the time. But I'm so disgusted with this administration, with so many of the people who I knew personally, who looked me in the face over many years, told us that this was things they believed. Jokes on me for believing them. And I also, I'm really terrified about where this brings us. Not just in terms of the region, think about where we are. This country is now at war with Iran, embroiled in a full blown regional conflict with no congressional authorization, no debate how many Times did we say over the last preceding years, 90% of Americans had no idea any of this was happening. Carrier strike groups that were on there, were there, many of them are waking up and all they have is a Twitter video released by the President at 2:00am as of right now, the president is not scheduled to make any public remarks. That is how much contempt that they have for all of us is that they don't have to explain their actions. They can launch this war completely of choice. Our Congress is a joke absent for Ro Khanna. Everybody in the Democrat and the Republican Party who, you know, even remotely is upset about this is like, but what about the process? Will anybody think of the process and of the strategic end? There's no strategic end game. Trump said it. It's about regime change, how we avoid getting into a broader conflict. I have no idea. I truly have no idea how it
- [16:44]
Bowen Yang
is, because how from the beginning, if you declare that the goal of the mission is for the government to collapse, and by the way, Voice of America Persia is up on air telling people to rise up against the regime and, you know, throw off the yoke of their oppression, blah, blah, blah. So if you don't achieve that, then you failed. And do you think that this president is just going to walk away and take that? L. Of course he's not. So, look, I mean, I. I am always nervous when I bring up the Israeli equation here simply because I do not want to deny this president any agency. Right. These are his decisions. He is fully and completely responsible for them. Netanyahu has successfully achieved and ensnared this president in the trap that he has been trying to ensnare the, you know, American people and the United States of America in for decades. It's happened, it's done. The trap is now closed because Trump has said the end goal is for this government to fall. So what is that going to mean going forward? How are we going to achieve that? Because it is highly unlikely that you're going to be able to achieve it simply with airstrikes where we can, you know, fly over, drop some bombs and get out and, you know, and not actually be on the ground. That is the sort of thing that would require an actual ground invasion, because think about it. This government, yes, they've been weakened by our economic sanctions, economic warfare. Yes, they've been weakened by the 12 Day War. Yes, they're weakened by the fact that there is a significant amount of the population that is very unhappy with them, but they have also survived for damn near 50 years with the US wanting them gone and wanting them dead the entire time. So do not think that this is just going to be some quick and easy thing where we can drop a few bombs and they're going to say, oh, you're right, we're going to go and, you know, glorious freedom will ultimately reign. Let me put, you know, this statement from the Iranians up here just to get a sense of, you know, what they're saying. This is Sardar Jabari, advisor to the commander in chief of the irgc. He says Trump should understand this clearly. What we launched today were our last stock missiles. What comes next? Next are systems and weapons he has never seen before. Now, this may be bluster, we don't know, but clearly already, and this was something we talked about and we anticipated, they are hitting back much harder than we have ever seen before with the range of targets that they are striking, with the threats to close down the Strait of Hormuz, which would have huge, huge economic reverberations. You already have a number of shipping companies suspending any sort of travel in the region. Of course, air travel is shut down in the region as well. So we are already at full scale regional war with and very hard to see what the off ramp is, what that would look like because again, you know, this president is not going to walk away with his tail between his legs and say, oops, you know, we didn't accomplish the goal, but you know, we'll live to fight another day.
- [19:51]
Matt Rogers
Even if we wanted to, how can we do so when we have the Israelis who are on our right shoulder, who are always willing to up the ante. They will never allow us out of this. That's why they tried to target the Iranian Ayatollah on day one. This is now a war of absolute declaration on the regime. They will now have to fight to the death if they ever want to live to see another day. And many of the top leadership, it appears, has already been wiped out. Again, as we noted at the beginning, I believe that many plan for this. I think that the IRGC and others were fully aware that this was going to happen and that they are now going to collapse. As we all found out in Iraq. Taking out the very top echelon, the bathists, the people who run the country, can often result in a much more strategically bad situation. It unleashes chaos. Lower level IRGC folks, anybody with a monopoly on the use of force, access to weapons, you are now in charge of your own fiefdom, of your own survival. There will be a full blown conflict. I Think inside of the country regardless of whether the United States is evil even able to come in or not. Again actually looking, just learning this morning, the President doesn't appear to be to be speaking again to the American people. I cannot actually believe it that this is happening. We also by the way have our fail son who is ready and able. Can we put Reza Pahlavi's statement up here on the screen? Rezas Pahlavi, the son of the deposed Shah of Iran is now openly calling not only just for regime change but for people rising up. His statements are being broadcast by Voice of America and others into the country in Farsi. So this is a direct US authorized coup to try and restore some sort of the monarchy. We'll see if it does ever get there. But that is, you know, I mean this is disastrous. This is Iraq 2.0 in many ways except, except without the US boots that are on the ground. We don't obviously want to see that and avoid it. However, even if we do avoid it, then the country is very likely on a Libya trajectory right now and in particular to turn itself into an Israeli rump state which will long be targeted. Their goal is a full blown civil war inside the country. They don't care about the refugee crisis because none of them will come to them. They'll stick it on the Arabs and they'll stick it on it on Europe. Europeans by the way, appear broadly supportive so far of a lot of these strikes. Mark Carney, Mr. New Global Order. Mr. New Global Order is supportive of this. Just to show you all how full of shit so many of these people are, I'll give Macron his credit. Yeah, go ahead.
- [22:32]
Bowen Yang
Yeah, well, I would just wanted to point out the statement that I have up from J.D. vance because I think this may turn out to be a rather infamous statement that he made yesterday. I think we have to avoid over learning the lessons of the past. Just because one president screwed of military conflict doesn't mean we can never engage in military conflict again.
- [22:51]
Matt Rogers
That's when I knew we were done.
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Bowen Yang
And yeah, and this is, you know, this is Mr. Positioned himself like he was Mr. Anti War and now he's saying oh, the Iraq War, that was just a blip, we shouldn't have, we shouldn't overlearn the mistakes from that. And to your point about Tulsi Gabbard, you know she had previously what she would say is the going to war with Iran will make Iraq look like a cakewalk. That was her previous positioning. And now here we are going to say about launching A major war with Iran and not even some pretext of like it's limited strikes. No, we are going for the whole thing.
- [23:25]
Matt Rogers
Yeah. What do you. Well, I mean what is there to even say about people like this? It's, it's the post profound lie to the American people, man. I, I can't even think of a, of a similar example. And look, you know maybe we'll, we'll help them pay for it a little bit later but in the interim, as we all know, we are at their mercy. And what we are now watch is a full blown regime change. John Bolton, Mark Levin, many others who are doing backflips, I would give Roque. Yeah. Lindsey Graham. I mean my God. I mean it is, it is really noteworthy insofar as the war has gone now. Is that all? Not only was diplomacy a ruse, but even the limited strike package was not was a ruse because it presumed negotiations. This is fully the Israeli wet dream of what's happened. And just to prove it to you, can we put that CNN article up there about. I couldn't even believe that this is real. I checked. It's real. This is a real article that ran on CNN.com from Jerusalem and they are talking about the significance of this day launching this attack from the book of, of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy and Amalek. So like this is the reality.
- [24:44]
Bowen Yang
This is remember and this is the about to be. Ellison owned CNN by the way. So they're just you know, pre complying with. Not that CNN was ever that great to start with, but pre complying with the new extreme Zionist regime that's about to be.
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Matt Rogers
Let me read this.
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Bowen Yang
Led by Barry Weiss.
- [25:01]
Matt Rogers
These are the people who are. We are at the mercy of. The timing of the US Israeli attack bears symbolic meaning in Judaism. Ahead of the upcoming holiday of Purim, wor worshippers read the specific portion from the Old Testament known as Zakor. The passage from the book of Deuteronomy commands the ancient Israelites to remember an unprovoked attack by the nation of Amalek and to eradicate the memory of Amalek once the Israelites are settled in their land. The passage is read publicly before Purim to fulfill the mitzvah of remembering Amalek as Israel's archetypal enemy. This and because if you combine this with the fact that the date was already pre planned some year like months ago. Well, I mean you think American war planners picked the date to coincide with the book of Deuteronomy and Amalek. I mean this is insanity. This also combines, we talk about the
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Bowen Yang
theocracy of Iran posing such a risk and making them so irrational. And then this is literally the justification that is given for the launch of this war. I mean, that's insane. That is insane.
- [26:03]
Matt Rogers
How can we even trying to explain this to normal people is going to be one of the more difficult projects of this war. And I'm going to ask everybody who's watching this, you know, not, don't be annoying, but when people bring it up, try to get into it and really get it because the propaganda is going to be unbelievable. Already this morning turning on Fox News and CNN, by the way, CNN, not only the Amalek thing, they've got Brett McGurk and all of these officials who have all been advocating for regime change.
- [26:29]
Bowen Yang
They have John Bolton, preemptive strike. Preemptive strike.
- [26:33]
Matt Rogers
Yeah, preemptive strike. Who are just doing the bidding and printing Pentagon war. Pentagon press statements, by the way, the Pentagon pate Hegseth. He's calling this operation epic fury. This is like cosplaying war except it's real life and there are already dozens of people who have been killed. Why don't we put up the statement from the Iranian state media of a
- [26:56]
Bowen Yang
school that was struck. Yeah, let me put this one up. This is horrible. This school, girls school, it appears was elementary school, was struck by either the US or Israel. Here they're reporting at least 40 killed, 48 students injured following this strike on a girls school in Manab as rescue and recovery efforts continue. So.
- [27:20]
Matt Rogers
Right, yeah, we live in the type
- [27:21]
Bowen Yang
of nation that strikes girls school. And do you think they're going to be sad about, do you think they're going to apologize for it? Do you think they're going to accept any blame or accountability? Of course not. Of course we look at what the Israelis and the US got away with, the genocide in Gaza. Now literally every level of horror and brutality is on the table.
- [27:40]
Matt Rogers
Yeah, that was probably the Israelis from what I've seen now so far, you know, sticking to their long tried and true, you know, war targeted strikes that we all know well from what happened in Gaza. And it is just so unbelievable already to watch how this has gone out and what we are watching now so far. I mean, I really think again, you know, despite all of the talk about peace and diplomacy to launch the war in this fashion, we have no off ramp. It's over. I mean, unless there's a literal about face by Donald Trump, which I think is very unlikely. The other problem as we saw, is that it's very easy to start a war. It's much harder to end a war. And that's when you're in control of your own government. Now you have a foreign rogue state which will bomb any country which is in the immediate vicinity and can kick things off into higher gear whenever they want to.
- [28:37]
Bowen Yang
And, and our ambassador to that country saying that they're, you know, we're down with the Greater Israel Project if, you know, Israel wants to just fully fulfill their biblical prophecy and take over whatever portions of the neighboring states that they, they want to. I mean, that, you know, apparently is US Official policy at this point, given that it was stated by the US Ambassador that it appears to reflect facts on the ground in terms of Israeli behavior and was never walked back by any element of our regime. And I just want to throw the Epstein angle of this into the mix because you have to look at this and in some senses go, it doesn't really add up there. The military didn't want to want this war. The political people knew that this could be a big problem. I mean, you just look at the polling and you know that it is catastrophic. Now, will Republicans, who are Trump supporters, will they come around and suddenly flip and they'll support, sure. But independents, any sort of swing voter, they are dramatically opposed to this. Especially when from the jump you're saying, hey, Americans are probably going to die here. Sorry. So the political piece, the military piece, our allies in the region, they did not want this war. Our broader allies in Europe and Canada, they were not pushing for this. This was just Israel and the Israeli, you know, pro Israel donors in the US and then Donald Trump, who decided that this is the direction that we should go in. And so you have to factor into this, okay. You know, they are not so stupid in this government that they can't see what we do, that this is potentially disastrous, that there's no off ramp that we could get dragged in, that it's this massive regional conflagration at a time when trial Trump is already incredibly politically weak. And then so you have to couple that with, okay, well, maybe it really is something that Israel knows about him in the Epstein files. You know, we have this ongoing mass cover up. Clearly there are things in there he does not want to come out, as evidenced by the fact that they are hiding the files, that they are giving Ghislaine Maxwell this cushy treatment. And now I think you have to add another piece of evidence that he has decided to do the thing that is the one line he has always Trump has always been very belligerent. Right. Very hawkish. He's not afraid to use the military. But the one thing he seemed to be genuinely concerned about is getting embroiled in a long term forever war, especially in the Middle East. And now add another layer.
- [30:58]
Matt Rogers
Yeah, go ahead, I'll add another layer. Crystal and I, you know, I've been, it's been a bit difficult to try and navigate this, but I'm just going to come out and tell everybody. I think Donald Trump believes that the Israelis would use a nuclear weapon. I think he believes that they would use a nuclear weapon against Iran or at the very least that they would launch the preemptive war no matter what, and they would basically dare America to not defend them. So it could be, it's also, I genuinely think either some sort of, you know, either black or strategic blackmail. Very. At the very least. And considering how the Israelis have operated in Gaza, I think we should believe that if they're going to make those types of threats. And, you know, that's, that's something I've been hearing a little bit behind the scenes. It's been a bit, you know, difficult to actually. Well, it's been difficult to assess because we talked about it. Like, do we really think that, like, it just seems so crazy, I think as evidenced by what has happened, as you just said, who launches a preemptive or who launches a war of choice nine months before the midterm elections of which 80% of Americans are against. That's not normal. Not when you have the entire administration full of people who are on the record who are against regime change, war with Iran. Something is going on. Something is going on. I personally think there was a nuclear blackmail angle, effectively that happened some behind the scenes, if you don't believe me. This is a precedent, by the way, from the Yom Kippur War and you can go and read a little about that in 1973. But I do think it's very important for us to try and assess now how we as our, as a democracy, we had literally no checks and have no ability to check inside this now because, and I really mean this now with Congress, the Congress is surrendering, aside from Ro Khanna, and if we want, we can put his video on because I want to give this guy as much credit as humanly possible. Him and Thomas Massie, who at the very least foresaw this, who are at least calling get these guys on the record because John Thune and Chuck Schumer and Mark Warner and all of these other guys, they May talk about how they're against it. They're not, they're against the, you know, they're against the process of which it all went down. But these are the only people who are at least demanding, let's say if this is a disaster sometime in the future, that we can howl and hold these people accountable for actually doing this. All right, so let's, let's play Rokon.
- [33:24]
Donald Trump (quoted)
Donald Trump has launched a war on Iran. The Congress must reconvene on Monday to vote on Thomas Fancy and my War Powers Resolution to stop this war. Trump says his goal is to topple the Iranian regime. But the American people are tired of regime change. Wars that cost us billions of dollars and risk our lives. We don't want to be at war with a country of 90 million people
- [33:50]
Matt Rogers
in the Middle East.
- [33:51]
Donald Trump (quoted)
Every member of Congress must go on record today on how they will vote on Thomas Massey and my War Powers Resolution.
- [33:59]
Bowen Yang
And you know, they really, the Democratic leadership, like the Capitulation caucus on the Democratic side, they really pulled some here because this votes was supposed to happen last week and they came to Roe and they said, oh, well, some people are wavering. It'll go better if we wait till next week. And just happened that that bought Trump enough time to, you know, launch this war alongside Israel on their chosen day, you know, to honor their commitments to destroying Amalek. Before this War Powers Resolution could, could come down. Now it's been. So Mark Warner, you mentioned Mark Warner. He put out like a really extremely lame statement that I can put up on the screen to give you a sense of, you know, these are some of the things that we're hearing like from him and from Schumer ahead of time, which was hand wringing and concern trolling over the process here. So he says, in part by the President's own words, American heroes may be lost. That alone should be demanded the highest level of scrutiny, deliberation and accountability. So not don't do it. Just, we need some more scrutiny. Yet the President moved forward without seeking congressional authorization. The Constitution has cleared the decision to take this nation to war. Rest with Congress. Congress launching large scale military operations, particularly in the absence of an imminent threat to the US Raises serious legal and constitutional concerns. Congress must be fully briefed and the administration must come forward with a clear legal justification, a defined end state and plan that avoids dragging the US into yet another costly and unnecessary war. So, you know, extremely lame statement there. I will say there are others who have come out, have been much more forceful, including people you wouldn't necessarily expect. This is Tim Kaine. He said, you know, he's a major proponent of clawing back war powers from the executive branch. Has us. Has President Trump learned nothing from decades of U. S Meddling in Iran and forever wars in the Middle East? Is he too mentally incapacitated to realize we had a diplomatic agreement with Iran that was keeping its nuclear program in check until he ripped it up during the first term? For months, I've raised hell about the fact the American people want lower prices, not more war, especially wars that aren't authorized by Congress as required by the Constitution and don't have a clear objective. These strikes are a colossal mistake, and I pray they do not cost our sons and daughters in uniform and at embassies throughout the region their lives. The Senate should immediately return to session, vote on my war powers resolution to block the use of U.S. forces in hostilities against Iran. Every single senator needs to go on the record about this dangerous, unnecessary and idiotic action. So, you know, you're going to have a real divide in the Democrats. No one is going to. Well, except for John Fetterman has already come out and said he thinks this is great and wonderful and whatever. So you've got that, that. But outside of him, you're gonna have two camps. You're gonna have the camps like Roe and like Tim Kaine here, who are clearly opposed, and then you're gonna have the process, hand wringers like Mark Warner. And so take careful note of who is who, and then also take careful note of how everybody, Democrat or Republican, votes on these War Powers Resolution, because at this point, obviously it's too late to stop anything. And let's be honest, even if they voted on this last week, this administration was going to do whatever the they wanted to do anyway. But at the very least, least, at the very least, we can get some sort of record of who was where, who supported what, because they must be political hell to pay for everyone who was okay with this, who enabled it, and especially for those who actively cheerleaded it.
- [37:27]
Matt Rogers
Yeah, that's right. I think you're absolutely right. And I think it's unbelievable watching already, you know, some of the scenes. Also, there's some chatter from Radio Israel and multiple others Israeli news outlets that the Ayatollah Khomeini was, you know, targeted directly. They're saying that he was likely injured and they would be shocked if he was not dead. So you already have major figures in the Iranian regime who are either confirmed dead or who are very likely dead, who are. All right, now, but you can see, you know, currently as we're all watching right now, one of the most extraordinary wars of choice now in years from the United States. I mean, I never thought I would sit here, here and give flowers to George W. Bush for, for, for manufacturing evidence, for taking it to the UN Security Council, for taking it to Congress and getting Hillary Clinton and all of the other Democrats on the record. And truly, I mean, 90% of the American people were supporting the war with Iraq. We had the cable news. There was no debate, none, zero on this entire thing. Most people are probably just waking up this morning and they had no idea that this was even really on the table. And now, you know, you may know somebody, I certainly do. People who are deployed now in the Gulf, people who are deployed on these carrier strike groups, people who are served in the United States military, their lives are at risk. Not my words, the President's words. Their lives are at risk. They may be, they may be lost, but it is what it is, is basically what he is saying now currently. Look, there's going to be a lot of propaganda over the years or over the, it is going to be years, unfortunately, most likely now in this, there's going to be a lot of propaganda over the years. I think on this conflict. Don't just, you know, let's remember Iraq, mission accomplished, only took three weeks. There will be many claims from this administration. They will deride those of us who spoke out of gets it as panicans. They will manufacture victories. They will try to portray it as something that worked in the immediate term. Let us all remember Iraq, Syria, Libya. I mean, I can't even think on the, off the top of my head, all of the interventions that we have had had where it plays out that way every single time. Afghanistan. We brought democracy to Afghanistan. It all worked out. They even had elections. Crystal, it was unbelievable. It was beautiful. People were voting. Hamid Karzai was in power for years. We thought it was a settled matter. And then what happened? What happened? So do not let these people just gaslight you with immediate declarations of victory or that it's all going to work out. We don't know yet the consequences. It will take many, many years to really grapple. All we can really hope for, you know, in the immediate term is like less loss of life. I don't see how it's possible. I really don't. Not whenever you're going to declare from the immediate term that this is it. And when you have the Israelis who are there who are ready to bomb, literally, you know, anything in sight in order to keep the war as brutal as possible because they don't want, you know, any element of the Iranian regime to come to power. Their nightmare. You know, this is another thing I think we should explain. The best case scenario, let's say for how this would all work out, would be some sort of IRGC commander who says, fine, I'll make a deal with you. I've seized control. Trump declares victory. You think Israel is going to let that happen? No. Right. They're going to want the like, they want the full Monty. They want the full on Pahlavi restoring of the monarchy, which many of the country's not going to accept. That basically guarantees civil war from the point that we are, the point where we're at, regardless of whether we come in or not, with boots on the ground or who even knows, with loss of life and other spheres.
- [41:07]
Bowen Yang
Well, and let's talk about a little bit why the Israelis feel that it's this is now or never for their moment to permanently establish their regional hegemony and, you know, take out their longtime nemesis Iran and make sure they can never achieve the, the nuclear weapons or any sort of balance in the region. Well, Israel has, they've got a lot of issues. You know, there's a poll that just came out that showed for the first time ever on net, the American people have more sympathy for the Palestinians than the Israelis. If you told me that five years ago, I would have told you, get your head examined. It is over for them. In terms of a blank check, the American people are done. There was some movement with Republicans, but predominantly with independents and Democrats. Overwhelmingly, they are disgusted by our enabling of this rogue genocidal regime. And it is highly likely in 2028 you are going to get a president who has a very different view of things and is going to take a very different approach. At the same time, they are staring down a very difficult demographic future. They've experienced significant brain drainage of the more secular and highly educated of their citizens who have left the country. I'm sure this, you know, new war is probably not going to help them out on that front. And you have increasingly the population made up of hard right and more orthodox families who have large numbers of children but don't want to work, don't want to fight in the military and want to just benefit from Israel's generous social safety net. So the math doesn't match path over a long period of time. That's why both from a demographic perspective and also a political perspective in the U.S. most importantly, but around the world, globally, you know, their reputation is in the toilet. That's why they feel like now is the time we have to go for broke. Because this is very risky for them too. I mean, they're going to take damage, right? This is going to be, this requires. Yeah, they already have. This requires a significant amount of risk taking. So you might ask yourself, well, why does Israel want this, this right now at this time as well? That is the reason, because they can see the writing on the wall that they are at the peak of their strength right now and things are only going to be downhill from here and that the, the very existence of the state and like their strength is also very much on the line. So, you know, you've got that and then you've got whatever is going on with Trump, you know, whether it's the, the nuclear blackmail, the Epstein thing, you know, people, you said it's called, that's being called Operation Epic Fury. I see people saying, let's call it Operation Epstein Fury, which I absolutely think we, because I do think that those two things are directly connected. And all of the hundreds of millions of dollars that flowed into his campaign from pro Zionist sources. Then you've got the media array. You know, we just got the news about the, you know, the Paramount deal. So now you have the Ellison have not only CBS, CNN, HBO, TikTok, just this mass media empire that is not only pro Trump but pro Zionist to do their best to manufacture consent. Not that I think that's entirely going to work on the American people, but those are all the chips that they've kind of got in play to make this, you know, final, final, disastrous, insane move on the chessboard.
- [44:22]
Matt Rogers
Right, Yeah. I mean, just summarizing now, obviously we will be covering this now for years to come. Uh, I hope we were able to add a little bit of some context to the things that you're all watching play out. This is unfortunately going to be very long. This will be a weeks long campaign just in the immediate future. Then we will have to see where things shake out. There's untold amounts of death and destruction for the people of Iran. They are now fully going to be at the mercy of the western and the regional powers. They'll also probably be at the mercy of a regime which is fighting for its life. The Iranian Foreign Minister is on television right now, Crystal, as you and I are speaking. He has said as far as he knows, the Ayatollah is alive. He is also saying that he doesn't know why the United States insists on diplomacy and then tax the other party in the middle of their negotiations. He says, we lost a few commanders, but that's fine. We know how to fight from here. Echoing some of the things I was saying earlier, they planned basically to be for a lot of decapitation and effectively it's built in and now they have no choice but to go all out. What all out means and their capabilities, obviously we don't know, but there's a lot of lives at risk on American service members too. I really didn't think I would live to see it.
- [45:40]
Bowen Yang
A lot of lives, a lot of chaos. You know, I mean, kind of everything is really on the line right now. You've opened up an extraordinary, you know, an extraordinarily dangerous Pandora's box and now we all just have to sit back and see where the hell this, this takes us. I'm going to be interviewing Dr. Tree to Parsi in a little while, so pay attention for, you know, look out for that interview later today. And we're going to continue to stay on top of this as things develop. Also just, you know, caveat on everything that all the elements that we put up. Obviously this is a very fast moving situation and you know, it can be difficult to ascertain the, you know, veracity of all the things that are unfolding in your timeline on a moment to moment basis, which is also, you know, reality check for you guys out there while you're monitoring the situations. Just remember that, that there's always things that come out that turn out to be untrue later on. So just keep that in mind as you're processing all of this information.
- [46:36]
Matt Rogers
Keep in mind propaganda, AI, social media, disinformation from the Iranians, from the Israelis, from the United States. Keep in mind, try to fact check some of these things. It's going to be an immensely difficult time ahead for all of us. I'm grateful to be doing the show with you. I hope we can try and help people understand the world. It's a bad time, but we'll see you all as soon as, probably very soon. Unfortunately,
- [47:04]
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- [47:34]
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- [49:04]
Matt Rogers
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [49:07]
Bowen Yang
Guaranteed Human.